The Virtue of Nationalism, etc.
C-Span just broadcast a lecture by Israeli thinker Yoram Hazony during which he discussed his new book, The Virtue of Nationalism. Although the text is global in perspective a great deal of attention is given to the United States -as might be expected from someone who graduated from Princeton and studied at Rutgers. His English is flawless "American." Among the highlights of the talk: * Nations need cohesion to survive and this necessarily means, above all else, a common religious tradition to provide not only a common frame of reference but cherished traditions, a source of vital virtues and values, and cultural pride. * Cohesion means "what holds society together," * Libertarianism is everywhere and is pulling American society apart with its every-man-for-himself ego-centered worldview and values. * The young are not waiting for anything and are moving in their own direction and will be lost for good unless there is a sea change in American culture. As things are now, a significant sector of the young who would ordinarily become 'good conservatives' are veering into White Identity Politics which, in Europe, means white nationalism. * American education is an unalloyed mess and conservatives are clueless about what to do about it. Hazony said that one essential remedy is to make study of the Bible a major part of US education. Mostly, at least to judge from what I heard, I agree with him. However, he made some assumptions that are unwarranted. Yes, for sure, teach the Bible in the schools -at all levels, maybe not Kindergarten but some point in grade school onward -and into college. But I certainly do NOT mean treating the Bible as a devotional text whose every word is true and unarguable. People are free to take a devotional view of the Bible in a religious context, of course, but that simply will not fly in public education. In any case the Bible is not flawless and free from all mistakes, a view that I regard as indefensible. Besides, what makes the Bible interesting isn't how fervently someone may pray, but the numerous mysteries it contains, including historical mysteries like who wrote it, why some books in the OT are based on ancient non-monotheistic religious values and beliefs, why the writers had the beliefs they did and how Hebrew/Jewish beliefs changed over time, what the relationship of the Bible is to other classical books like the writings of Plato or Plutarch, and so forth. --------------- That is, it is essential to forget nearly all the assumptions you may habitually make about what the Bible is and what it means. To understand the Bible as its authors intended you simply cannot bring denominational biases to the project, and you certainly cannot take pop culture views about the book seriously. That is, "Hollywood theology" is worthless, secular culture views are worthless, TV views are worthless, and so forth. But very few people can make these kinds of distinctions. Most people assume what the culture says on the subject, not even aware that they have been conditioned by a Leftist worldview -now inculcated in education up and down the line and broadcast into everyone's heads by the ubiquitous mass media. Worse, as one questioner said from the floor during Q & A, many conservatives take the view once expressed by Irving Kristol, that the culture war is 'over' and the Right lost and now only focuses on making money. Guess what? I do not think that the real Culture War has even begun -because until and unless I am able to express my views in a meaningful public forum all the important questions and observations to make will still be unexpressed and everyone will remain ignorant. Feel free to re-read these words, they are exactly what I wanted to say. Basically, the Right is, as said only hours ago, incompetent and uninformed. Like George Gilder, who was one of the people who asked questions from the floor, who provided a mish-mash of erroneous 'information' while trying to make an invalid point. Like it or not, with no respect for the fact that hardly anyone these days has any idea of what religion is really all about, ahead of us is a new "War of Religions." Hopefully this will be a war of ideas and not another conflict like the wars of religion in the post-Reformation era in Europe, but there will be a war. And if you are basically uninformed about religion you will be like a regiment thrown into battle with no weapons. You will be exposed and unable to defend yourself. Basically you will look like an idiot. Sorry if you invested close to 100% of your time in school studying Marx or Adam Smith, but that kind of education is rapidly becoming obsolete. And there isn't any kind of quick fix for the problem. Which is why most of the people who I would like to work with in the future have serious knowledge of religion, the product of years of study. This does not mean years of prayer. Mother Jones is best known for her quote: "Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living." The magazine, in totally misconstruing Mother Jones, forgets all about the prayer part. Evangelical pietists if they were ever to cite Mother Jones, could be depended on to spend no time at all on the "fight" dimension. My view is that prayer is the smallest part of religion and that faith is primarily about fighting for what it right, fighting for truth, and fighting against evil. "Pietism" is used here to refer to intense devotionalism as found among most Evangelicals but also some Baptists and which is pronounced among Pentecostals. Functionally it is about the same thing as bhakti yoga among Hindus, extreme mysticism among Catholics and so forth, even Hassidic Jews with their own version. Among Evangelicals, etc, it often features a nearly literal "love affair" with Jesus in which hours every day are spent in prayer. That is, it is self absorption taken to extreme -and it also is pretty much the opposite of my faith. Which is? Pretty much like that of Albert Schweitzer, mostly action of some kind, mostly lifelong learning, and a good deal of time in study of non-Christian faiths that are, or so it is easy to conclude, compatible with Christianity. I have among my pending projects, one about Alexander Hamilton and his view that America is -or should be- a Christian nation. I realized before getting very far with this project that it was important to spell out what was meant by "Christian." Because my view, despite various similarities, is very different than that of Evangelicals generally and vastly different than that of Pentecostals. In a way it has Catholic features except that my theology is on a different planet than that of most Catholics. But mostly it is Baptist in character, another word that I use radically unlike how most people use the term. Think of Roger Williams, father not only of the Baptist persuasion in America but also the father or freedom of religion. Also think of Harvey Cox, the Harvard theologian, Ray Bradbury, Gene Roddenberry, Justice Hugo Black, the "originalist" Constitutionalist, and very pragmatic Harry S Truman. Forget most other "name" Baptists. But here are some living Baptists you may have heard of, like Lindsey Graham, Bill Moyers, and Albert Mohler Can't say that I am "like" any of them but there are commonalities. As there even is with the late Chuck Colson, at least in his book, Born Again. Can't say that I am "coming from" that POV in any orthodox way, but no-one is Baptist in any sense who doesn't "get" what Colson said in its pages. Baptists often have a ribald sense of humor; and they usually like Country music. I also like Country music (along with Bach and Sibelius) but limit my "liking" to sexy women who sing Country songs. Mostly the men Country singers can take a hike. But they will understand since most of them are Baptists, too, and share my attitude toward the opposite sex. Hey, Baptists are not prudes, or most of them aren't even if there are some who are and who give Baptists a bad name. Got all of this? Now let's move on. In any case, I agree whole heartedly with Yoram Hazony that you cannot understand most of American history unless you realize that, at least since ca. 1800 (not 1776), continuing to the Eisenhower era, even, somewhat, as late as the 1980s, America has clearly been a Christian nation. And the Bible has been central to exactly this, all along. The New Christianity is intended to make that happen again -but not the way that most Evangelicals might assume when they hear the phrase. In my view the era of Evangelical dominance in Protestant Christianity is over, or is well along toward being over. It in all probability will continue to play a major part in American culture and that is fine with me, but there will be a new challenge. This is about action in the here and now, it is not about ten year plans or other excuses not to do anything. As much in the here and now as possible, anyway. It is about restoring helpful traditions that have been nearly destroyed by Cultural Marxists and Atheist libertarians and gender feminists and others who hate America and love Islam and love sexual perversity and love irrationality in the arts and love every cultural sickness that comes down the pike. And it is about creating a future that we can be proud of as Americans and if others doesn't like it they can go to hell. It is about spirituality that means something. If there is one book -shortcomings or not- that more-or-less captures the essence of this, it is a 1992 volume by Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection. That is, don't look for perfection, it does not exist in the real world. People will need to settle for doing the best we can. Billy R. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <RadicalCentrism@googlegroups.com> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to radicalcentrism+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
